The Division Violist

As a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, Henry Butler’s fame streched beyond the region and epoch in which he was employed. This is remarkable, since his work was never published during his lifetime, because of an exclusive contract with his employer, the Spanish court. Henry Butler’s style of Divisions is very eleborate and demonstrates a profound knowledge of the instrument. In his music one can find a level of technical difficulty that remains unmatched in all successive epochs. Butler pushed the viola da gamba to explore all the range of its possibilities.